Medusa the Rich

by Joan Holub

“Oh!” said King Midas. His eyes went wide. “I see what you mean!” He furrowed his brow as if thinking. Finally he leaned forward in his chair and spoke to Dionysus. “I accept your offer. And I know exactly what to wish for.”

  “Speak it,” Dionysus commanded.

  “Well, everyone says I have the right touch when it comes to growing roses,” Midas said slowly. “They say I have a green thumb.” He paused. “So I was wondering . . . could I wish to have the right touch for growing gold, too? Could you grant me a golden touch? So that whatever I touch with my fingertip turns to gold?” He held up his right index finger.

  Medusa’s eyes lit up. “Ooh! Perfect. Can you do that, Dionysus?”

  A little cloud of concern passed over the godboy’s face, but it disappeared so quickly that she wondered if she’d only imagined it. “Yes, but are you sure?” Dionysus asked the king. “You’ll only get a single wish, and once that wish goes into effect, there will be no take-backs.”

  “Why would he want to give up such a glorious power, once bestowed?” Medusa interrupted. “That would be crazy!”

  King Midas seemed encouraged by her confidence in his idea. He nodded enthusiastically. “Yes! I’m sure it’s what I want.”

  “All right, then.” With a look of intense concentration on his face, Dionysus reached out, pointing the index finger of his right hand at the king. “Hold your hand out to mine,” he instructed. When Midas did, Dionysus pulled back a little and added, “Last chance to change your mind.”

  “I won’t. I’m sure,” said Midas.

  “He said he’s sure,” Medusa confirmed. She could hardly wait for the king to finally get a bit of luck. A fingertip’s worth!

  “Okay. Here goes.” Dionysus touched the tip of his right index finger to the tip of King Midas’s right index finger. There was a slight glow where their fingers met, just for a split second. Then Dionysus let his hand fall to his side again.

  Midas faltered, looking unsure. Then he lowered his hand too.

  “That’s it?” he and Medusa asked at the same time.

  Dionysus nodded and smiled at the king. “Your touch is now as good as gold.”

  With his hand outstretched in front of him, Midas ran to the dining room table and touched a piece of a broken teacup. He and Medusa stared eagerly at it for a long minute, hardly daring to breathe.

  “Nothing’s happening,” she finally announced, disappointed.

  Dionysus smiled. Sounding unworried, he told the king, “The magic takes a while to work. Overnight should do it. By the time you wake in the morning, I guarantee you’ll have the golden touch.”

  “The golden touch,” Medusa repeated dreamily. She liked the sound of that. It had a certain ring to it. A golden ring in fact.

  5

  The Golden Touch

  AFTER A SIMPLE DINNER, THEY all went to their rooms for the night. But Medusa didn’t go to bed right away. Feeling a burst of inspiration, she got out her blank scroll and pen. Because she had just gotten an idea for that tenth comic she needed to enter the Comicontest! Words and pictures flowed fast from her pen as she pulled ideas from the events of the day and mixed them with ideas from her imagination.

  First she had the Queen of Mean use her magic Gorgonzola cheese to rescue a king (one who looked very much like King Midas in her drawings) from a gigantic, terrifying monster. A monster that looked like Typhon and broke dishes and ate everything else in its path. It even tried to eat a sweet little pet goat! But when the monster nibbled on the queen’s magic cheese . . . the cheese exploded! The surprised look she drew on the monster’s face was totally hilarious!

  When she’d finished her new comic-scroll, Medusa looked it over carefully. Perfect! she thought. She finally had the last comic she needed. It had lots of action. Plenty of humor. Good pacing. It would make a great addition to her collection for the Comicontest, if she did say so herself.

  Daylight was flooding her room through the sheer curtains by the time she rose the next morning. Because she’d stayed up to finish her new comic, she’d slept late. Argh!

  After leaping from bed, she dressed quickly, fed her snakes some dried peas and carrot curls from the snake snack sack she’d brought along, and then repacked her bag so she’d be ready to leave whenever Zeus returned for her and Dionysus. It never took her long to get ready in the mornings. That was one of the great things about having snake hair. It always looked good. Because snakes styled themselves!

  As she went to leave her room, she noticed a folded papyrus note on the floor that had been shoved under her door. When she unfolded the note, she recognized Dionysus’s handwriting right away. Eagerly, she began to read.

  DEAR GREENIE-GIRL,

  SILENUS HAS A MEGA-STOMACHACHE. OR SHOULD I SAY “STOMACH-CAKE”?

  “Oh no!” she murmured. But, really, no surprise there, now that she thought about it. That goat had eaten everything in sight last night. She read on:

  I’M TAKING HIM BACK TO MY CHILDHOOD HOME, SO THE NYMPHS CAN CARE FOR HIM. THE SWEET GREEN GRASS FROM OUR VALLEY WILL CURE HIM IN NO TIME. I DIDN’T WAIT FOR YOU BECAUSE IT’S A MAGICAL LAND WHERE MORTALS DARE NOT GO. ZEUS WILL COME FOR YOU TODAY OF COURSE. MEANWHILE, I’LL STAY THE NIGHT, THEN CATCH A SHIP ACROSS THE AEGEAN SEA AND BE BACK AT MOA ON SUNDAY. SEE YOU THEN!

  YOURS IN MAGIC,

  DIONYSUS

  “Ye gods, guys,” she told her snakes. “We’ve been deserted.” Her snakes drooped.

  “I know how you feel,” she told them. “I wish Dionysus hadn’t gone off without us too. Sounds like it couldn’t be helped, though. We’ll just have to hang around with the king till Zeus arrives. It would’ve been way more fun riding back with Dionysus, but that’s the way it goes.” After lingering for a few moments over the words “Dear greenie-girl” and “Yours in magic,” she refolded the letter.

  As she slipped it into the pocket of her chiton, she remembered the wish Dionysus had granted the king the night before. “Hey, let’s go see how that golden-touch thing is working out,” she said to her snakes. Her step quickened as she opened her door to go find the king.

  “Ye gods!” The sight that greeted her eyes made her gasp with wonder. The glitter of gold was everywhere in the cottage’s living room. The chairs were gold. The floor tiles were gold. So was the table. And on the newly gold table was a gold platter piled high with gold apples, grapes, and peaches. These items alone had to be worth a fortune. The king was rich again!

  The gold front door was standing open, so she figured the king must have gone outside. She stepped through the doorway and was mega-dazzled yet again. Because the entire garden with its rows and rows of rosebushes had been turned a shiny, gleaming gold!

  “Beautiful!” she breathed. But then she heard someone sobbing. King Midas?

  Medusa hurried through the sunlit rows of glittering gold rosebushes to find him. He was kneeling in front of a particular rosebush, now golden like all the others around it. It was near the also now-golden wicker tea table. And if she remembered correctly, this bush had been one of his favorites.

  King Midas lifted his tear-stained face when he heard her approach. “Ruined. All ruined,” he moaned. “I accidentally touched a single rose, and whoosh! The entire garden turned to gold.”

  “Oh.” Medusa gazed around. “Probably because they were all connected by leaves or roots, I guess? But they’re beautiful, don’t you think?” She went closer to him, but then, thinking better of it, edged away again, so as not to get too close to his gold finger.

  “No! They are not beautiful!” wailed the king. “Once, the roses on this bush were a deep ruby red with a scent like the finest perfume. And that one had orange roses, with a fragrance beyond compare. And that one over there was the violet-pink of a sunset. But now my poor rosebushes are all the same color and have no smell at all!”

  Just then a bright yellow butterfly fluttered over to the king’s favorite bush. Apparently not detecting any scent, it didn’t bother to light on a rose to sip its nectar. S
he wondered if the shiny, metallic roses even had nectar now.

  “True,” she told him, “but just think. You can sell this whole lot and buy hundreds . . . no, thousands more of the normal kind of rosebushes to plant. You’re rich!”

  Crash! Turning, Medusa saw that Tanis had come into the garden. Upon seeing the gold rosebushes, the girl had been so surprised that she’d dropped the tea tray she’d been holding. Before Medusa could speak to her, she ran off. How much of their conversation had she overheard?

  “I nursed those rosebushes from cuttings!” the king said in a woeful voice, having hardly noticed the crash or Tanis. “They were my little rosebuds. My babies.” He sadly cupped one of the roses nearest him in his palm. “I named this variety ‘Sweet Child.’ ” Then he began pointing at another bush and another. “And that one ‘Boy Wonder’ and that one ‘Pearly Girl.’ Now I’ve destroyed them! I’ve destroyed them all. I wish I’d never made that wish!” he exclaimed. His eyes were filled with despair.

  Then suddenly he leaped to his feet. “We have to do something to fix this!”

  “Well, Dionysus said ‘no take-backs,’ remember? So I’m not sure . . .” Medusa began. She was positive that Dionysus had never anticipated this situation when he’d granted the king’s wish. She certainly hadn’t. As she tried to think what to do, she reached up to pat her snakes.

  “I know, I know,” the king said, nodding his head. “But shouldn’t wishes come with some kind of ‘satisfaction guaranteed’ clause? That would make sense, wouldn’t it? I can’t be the only person ever to regret making a wish.” A glint of hope came into his eyes. “As soon as Dionysus is out of bed, I’ll ask him if there isn’t some way to rid myself of—”

  “Oh, but he’s gone,” Medusa hastened to tell him. She pulled Dionysus’s note from her pocket and opened it, intending to read it to the king. But then she fumbled and dropped it. Without thinking, King Midas reached to pick it up. As soon as his right index finger touched the note, it turned to gold.

  “No big deal,” Medusa assured him as he stared at the note in distress. It’s still readable.” It was true, for Dionysus’s writing had become gold too, etched into the paper as if carved. As she stooped and picked up the note, she quickly explained that Dionysus had taken Silenus back to his childhood home and wasn’t planning to return to Phrygia.

  “If only someone else could lift this golden curse from my shoulders,” the king moaned dramatically.

  Medusa glanced around, mentally searching for an answer to this king-size problem. She couldn’t believe that Midas wanted to get rid of the marvelous gift. Yes, you would need to be careful with it in order not to accidentally touch things you didn’t want to turn to gold. But if you were cautious, like she was with her stoneglasses, surely it could be done. Why, having the golden touch was a gift worth its weight in . . . well . . . gold!

  She was thinking that she’d trade her stone gaze for a gold finger any day, when she idly turned over Dionysus’s note and noticed a P.S. that she had missed before. She skimmed the words he’d added:

  P.S. IN CASE OF TROUBLE, PLEASE REMIND KING MIDAS THAT HIS WISH DOES NOT COME WITH TAKE-BACKS. THAT IS, NOT UNLESS SOMEONE IS WILLING TO TAKE THE WISH OFF HIS HANDS. AND THAT HAS TO HAPPEN WITHIN TWENTY-FOUR HOURS IN ORDER TO MAKE THE FINGERTIP-TO-FINGERTIP TRANSFER WORK.

  “Godsamighty! That’s it! I’ve found a way out of your wish,” she told the king. She pointed to the note, and the king scrambled closer to read it. “Are you absolutely positively sure you want to be rid of the golden touch?” she asked the king. “Because if you do—”

  “Oh, I do, I do,” Midas interrupted her.

  “Well, then I was thinking that you could transfer it to . . . me,” Medusa said.

  “But then you’ll be stuck with it!” King Midas exclaimed, looking distraught again.

  Stuck with the ability to create unimaginable riches? Ha! Medusa rolled her eyes. “It’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make,” she told him sincerely.

  “If you’re sure,” Midas said hesitantly. “Think Dionysus’s suggestion will really work?”

  Medusa shrugged. “All we can do is give it a try. Maybe first you should say out loud that you’re giving your wish to me. Just to make it official.” Then she quickly added, “And maybe say so in rhyme, since most magic spells are in rhyme.”

  “Okay.” King Midas thought for a while. Finally he came up with something:

  Please take my wish,

  If you would.

  I hope that it will

  Do you good.

  As his words died away, he reached his right hand out. Medusa reached her right hand out as well. Their fingertips inched closer. A split second before they touched, it occurred to her that she might have miscalculated. If so, instead of receiving the golden touch, she might be turned to gold herself! She didn’t want to become a statue of gold here in Midas’s garden today, thank you very much!

  Too late! Before she could snatch her hand back or reconsider or even blink, their fingers met. That soft glow appeared—the one she remembered seeing when Dionysus had given the touch to the king.

  Medusa hunched her shoulders, waiting anxiously to see what would happen. She’d actually become a marble statue once, when her own stony gaze had been boomeranged back onto her after Athena had tricked her into looking into a mirror. (Though, luckily, Athena had been able to remove the spell later.) So Medusa knew firsthand what the feeling of limbs turning stiff and cold was like.

  She wiggled her arms and legs as though they were wet noodles, testing to see if she could still move. Fortunately, that cold, stiff feeling she remembered from the other time did not come over her now.

  The king’s eyes widened, watching her in dismay. “What’s wrong?”

  She straightened, realizing she’d probably looked a little weird, wiggling all over. “Oh, nothing.”

  Looking relieved to hear it, the king suddenly ran over to an olive tree. He touched it, looking thrilled when it didn’t turn to gold. “Now you try touching something,” he told her, his eyes excited.

  Just then a dandelion puff floated in the air past Medusa. “Okay. Here goes.” She reached out, gently poking the puff with her fingertip. Zing!

  Instantly the puff turned golden—and heavier. It dropped to the ground with a clunk!

  At the same time a wave of color washed over the entire rose garden, restoring it to normal. The delicious fragrance of the roses filled the air around them once more.

  “Not only did we transfer touches. We also reversed the effects of my original wish! Oh, thank you, thank you!” King Midas exclaimed. Kicking up his heels, he did an impromptu happy dance in the middle of the garden. And afterward he skipped from rosebush to rosebush, reaching to touch his favorite roses and bending to smell their heavenly fragrances before finally running off to the stone cottage. Medusa followed him inside and watched him zip around, gleefully noting that all the furnishings and other items had returned to normal, just as the garden had.

  Hearing a mighty flapping sound, Medusa stepped outside again. She shaded her eyes and looked up to see Zeus and Pegasus coming in for a landing. She went to grab her bag, only remembering just in time to pick it up in her left hand, not her right. Then with a quick good-bye and thank you to the king, she scurried out the door.

  She was sure Zeus would be impatient to leave right away, and besides, she didn’t want King Midas spilling the beans about the golden touch. Zeus might not be exactly happy if he found out about the whole thing. And when he wasn’t happy about something, he could get thundering mad! As in thunderbolts and lighting. Which could be very, very frightening! Not to mention loud and dangerous.

  As Zeus hitched Pegasus to the chariot he’d left in the garden, she informed him that Dionysus was taking Silenus back to his childhood home and planned to board a ship back to MOA the next day. Zeus seemed to take this in stride and simply tossed her bag into the chariot, then offered her a hand up. Medusa quickly tucked her right hand into
the pocket of her chiton and gave him her left, so she wouldn’t turn him to gold. If that were even possible. Putting her hand into her pocket caused her chiton to turn gold at once. But luckily, it stayed stretchy and soft instead of turning hard and rigid. Otherwise she wouldn’t have been able to sit down in it.

  Zeus appeared oblivious about the change to her chiton. He wasn’t really looking at her, having already turned back to take up Pegasus’s reins.

  She was going to have to be very careful with this new ability, Medusa realized as Pegasus spread his golden wings and the chariot sailed into the sky.

  She pulled her hand from her pocket and held her magic finger up in front of her face, staring at it. Excitement filled her. This was for real. She was going to be rich. Mega-rich. No more begging her sisters for money to do the slightest little thing. Why, she could sell this gold chiton for enough to live on for a whole year probably. She had that comic-scroll entry fee in the bag.

  Sure, there might be a few pitfalls along the way with this whole golden-touch thing. But nothing she couldn’t handle. Whatever trouble she might encounter, it was going to be way worth it!

  6

  Do Not Touch!

  ON THE FLIGHT BACK TO MOA, Zeus entertained Medusa (and himself, mostly) by belting out songs that had been sung in his honor during the previous night’s temple ceremony in Aizanoi. One of them, his favorite apparently, since he sang it at least six times, had lyrics that went like this:

  Zeus is the mightiest god of them all.

  In battle he is brave.

  An incredible genius and great principal too,

  The Olympians he did save.

  So bow and tremble before his thunderbolts,

  And never misbehave!

  “It’s just so me,” Zeus told her each time he sang it. And each time, Medusa hastened to agree. After a little more than an hour had passed, they were landing in the courtyard at MOA. Medusa left-handedly grabbed her bag and jumped down from the chariot before Zeus could offer to help her.